Notices by Sean Coates (sean@scoat.es)

Welp. I just failed twice at opening a Pixelfed account. It's a sign. (-;

In the past 2 months, @pluralistic 's predictions (not endorsement)—née dystopian fiction—about three big events have come true:

- the killing of a US healthcare CEO by someone who was burned by the system (in Radicalized)
- huge fires in the LA area causing people to take cover and be wary of air quality (in The Lost Cause)
- the projection of protest against a tech richguy on the Tesla dealership/building in Berlin (UK parliament and politicians in Pirate Cinema)

Are there more?

Around 25 years ago we collectively decided that siloing communications into proprietary systems was unacceptable. AOL and CompuServe (and Prodigy, and others) lost their stranglehold on email, and we all won when email became deliverable no matter who the recipient pays for their connection. The Internet boomed.

After we've learned so much, most of our communications are tied back up in proprietary silos (often with bad overlords) like Slack, What's App, and Bluesky.

Real federation must win.

Can't wait for @pluralistic 's new Martin Hench book to come out.

I just backed it on Kickstarter because they can deliver through libro.fm. I almost skipped the kickstarter because having a bunch of audio files kicking around sounds unpleasant, but I use Libro FM for listening to books these days anyway, so nice of you to offer it this way, Cory. https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113787611943970960

Ugh. One of the worst apps on my phone (which I use because the door controls are even worse), which controls the appliance that I *ALREADY* overpaid for, is switching to a subscription model.

I get to maintain "free" access… for now.

I'd hate this less If this app wasn't so terrible.

"But maintaining an app costs money!" you say.

Of course it does, but they need to do that to sell new ovens, anyway, and this is a secondary offering. They sold me the appliance, not the app (but now both…).

I've been quiet on here because I've been heads-down launching a new project with @shiflett , @nicksloan , and @jessicahische .

Despite a few embarrassing too-close-for-missiles, rushing-to-the-finish-line blunders (mine, I mean), and some ongoing App Runner frustration, I'm happy to announce https://studioworks.app

Really excited about this one.

Firefox is 20 years old today. I was using it as “Phoenix” before Firefox 1.0.

That was a real time of hope. Despite Microsoft’s coup attempt with Internet Explorer, we—the makers and users of the Web—prevailed. There was an alternative to the corporate control and vendor lock-in, and we embraced it.

The IE-only web was decimated. It was a victory for the platform we loved so much.

I wish we weren’t letting so much of that same pre-Firefox monoculture story play out with Chrome, right now.

You know that thing “I’m not angry; I’m just disappointed”?

Not this time. This time it’s both.

@schuh @pluralistic Thanks! This wasn’t even on my radar because I consume nearly only audiobooks. Any chance you know of an audio version of this somewhere? Even as part of a podcast or similar (like Spill, recently).

@evan Favourited for the camaraderie, not for the content. I did this a while back, too, and it feels awful.

We were there when Microsoft almost succeeded at destroying the Web with their browser monoculture in the late ‘90s. It’s horrible seeing Google gain ground in this same battle.

My remedial studies for today: (re-)watch @anildash ’s talk on The Web We Lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KKMnoTTHJk

This is from 11+ years ago. I’m watching in the context of “in hindsight, things didn’t even seem that bad 11 years ago.” So much has changed for the worse (as far as the Open/Good Web goes) since then.

A more optimistic standpoint: it DOES feel like there’s more movement in the right direction than even 5 years ago, with things like the fediverse gaining momentum. (1/3)

@evan bUt WhAt iF I lIsTeNed tO iT?!

Having trouble combining the letters elegantly, but there must be a portmanteau for the sounds in “ennui” and “week”, right?

Just went to share (externally to this platform) a post from @anildash , which was actually a repost from Threads, and copying the URL was mostly transparent (at least in my client, here, Mona).

I didn’t even really notice that it was Threads in this feed.

Pretty interesting that the federation (even if imperfect) is *happening*.

@dbs Thanks for sharing. I hadn’t seen the response. Some real eye-rolling results there. )-:

/cc @sboots @evan

@evan Sounds awesome. Did you get it locally? And think it’s suitable for a smart 12 year old?

@evan That’s a good question. I’m not sure, myself. It’s really more like “non-public”, but that doesn’t have a good ring.

@evan Yeah, I agree. What I meant is that some people hear that and think they’re public.

@evan I think part of that confusion is that DMs are not *private* (as far as access is concerned), they’re just direct.

Meaning: people with database access, or otherwise-privileged access to the instances, can read the DMs. This is true of pretty much every system that does not explicitly state otherwise; it’s just confusing to some folks.

@evan (because I know you do post-poll analysis)

Qualified yes: you should be able to disassociate someone’s replies from your own messages, but deleting another person’s posts entirely has its own abuse concerns (and is an arms race at best).

(White cis man here, so maybe my opinion is naturally flawed/incomplete, but have been considering/reconsidering these ideas for a long time.)